Classics Blog is a personal blog for stuff I am interested in, but especially Greek and Latin Classics. I will also write about Digital Classics, Drupal, WordPress, server technology, SEO (I have worked hard to make this website fast, and visible on Google). And anything else that interests me…
Few academics blog. Even fewer students. Why? One reason academics do not blog is fear. Fear of offending university authorities. Fear too of getting something wrong. If you make a casual comment face-to-face, and make a silly mistake, it vanishes … Continue reading
Christopher Stray, in Classics Transformed (Oxford, 1998, 68-74 and elsewhere), has a lot to say about verse composition in the history of English classical education. For him, verse composition was primarily a signal that its practitioners belonged to, and earned … Continue reading
Many American academics blog. British academics don’t on the whole. But the threat to Classics at Royal Holloway, University of London, has spawned a Support Classics at RHUL blog as part of the campaign to save Classics at RHUL. I … Continue reading
You start by going to university to read Classics. At some point you become a ‘scholar,’ engaged in what I can best describe with the German word Altertumswisseschaft. Instead of enjoying and learning from the Classics as companions and teachers, … Continue reading
In bidding a last farewell to a subject in which I never took more than a languid interest, I may be permitted to say that in England, at all events, every man will accent his Greek properly who wishes to … Continue reading
My first Latin lesson was in a classroom constructed almost entirely of asbestos. The boys (it was a boys’ school) called the block ‘The Cowsheds.’ I was 12. That year, my school became an early adopter of the Cambridge Latin … Continue reading
Here are some quick notes on online resources, particularly from the perspective of someone in the UK who is outside the university system, and therefore looking for materials with free access. In my last blog post I promised a piece … Continue reading
Sorry for the long silence. I have been away. Crossing the Alps. I went up to Schatzalp, the hotel at Davos where Thomas Mann is supposed to have set The Magic Mountain, or Zauberberg. It does bring the book to life, if anything. I was tempted to stay there, but the currently strong Franc made me think twice, and stay in a tent instead. This was probably more authentica an experience, since the Liegekur, or lying down treatment, involved breathing a lot of cold damp Alpine air, and even at this time of year, it was not warm in the tent!
Have now reached Luguria, and wondering which route Hannibal took. I did have tboughts of descending on Rome, but it is a bit far…
More when I am back.